Wildfire
by blood red youth
Summary: "You're my star, nothing else can lead me off track". Beginning of an A/L series, pre-book.


This is indeed the beginning of a new series. I'm not sure where it's going yet. Let me know if there's anything you think I should really delve into with this, I'm in a horrible state of writer's block and I'd love some direction! In fact, a lot of this idea came from literally just now reading rowanrawr's "Aura" - hope you don't mind that I completely ripped off your idea, it was genuinely unintentional!

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"Does there have to be a ceremony?"

Larten propped himself up on one elbow on the damp grass. The two had escaped the confines of the Mountain for the night to look at the stars and smell the freedom. It wouldn't be long now until the two of them were ready to travel together and see the world again. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he had missed the world and its glory, and the idea of revisiting many of his old favourite cities, only this time with a sense of _purpose_ and with Arra alongside him, was certainly attractive. He didn't know much about what she had seen over her years as assistant to Mika, or even before then. While she had been truly an assistant, tied to her mentor always, Larten had travelled often without Seba and had been an independent agent before. He hoped, as soon as they were mates, that he could show her the world again – only this time she really would feel free.

"Would you rather there was not a ceremony?" he asked, rolling onto his front to look at her as she kept her eyes turned up at the night sky. The grass was cold through his robes, and he thanked his vampire blood – without it, on a night like this, the two of them could not have happily experienced the open air.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of everyone…looking at us," she admitted. It was not meant to sound childish; Arra was not scared of anything. But she resented the way she had been treated at the mountain. Somehow she was always a topic of conversation, the first female vampire to make any sort of success of herself in a great many centuries. When she had finally broken free of Mika's influence that too had been a talking point – many had thought her foolish to turn down a man so powerful when it had become obvious that his intentions towards her had been more than as a mentor. Her Trials had been oddly well attended, mainly by those who sought bloodshed and less by those who held any faith in her. He could see it in the way she stared up at the stars that she worried the same might be true of their ceremony. She was a new General, and her acceptance had been obscenely contested considering her ability. Arrow, now the new Prince, disliked her immensely. Perhaps having observed the way she had led Mika astray in her earlier years, intentionally or not, he didn't approve of her being accepted into their warrior ranks in case she did the same again. He had made his feelings clear – and indeed, many agreed with him.

"We can make it as private as we wish," he assured her. He had already asked Paris Skyle to preside over the union, but he had not mentioned it to many others, except for Seba and Gavner. Arra wasn't one for friends, and probably had nobody she wished to include – Mika's wounds were still fresh and he had disappeared weeks ago into Siberia to nurse them.

She finally turned onto her side to look at him. "Did Seba ever tell you much about the ceremony?" she asked. Larten shook his head. Though he had an idea of what was involved from conversations with vampires who had mated over the years, it had never been a discussion he'd had with Seba – Larten had never thought for all the world that he would be one of those to settle down for ten or fifteen years and relinquish his life of hedonism he had so adored. Arra took one of his hands and rested it in hers, opening his palm to observe it.

"I think I know quite a lot about it," she said, almost shyly, not wanting to admit that it was Mika who had explained it, over and over and over again on a variety of occasions. With the edge of a fingernail she drew a soft line across his palm, not breaking the skin. "It's the norm to have an elder vampire present," she said. "But it needn't be Paris. Seba would do just as well. Mika never suggested it had to be a Prince. In fact, I think the word _ceremony_ might be a little misleading. It is not a marriage, with witnesses and a blessing. It has nothing at all to do with those around you. It is a bond between the two of you, independent of all else."

Before Larten had chance to react, to tell her regardless of her fears he would have liked their union to be as official and traditional as possible, she turned the finger she had been sliding across his palm down and made a palm-wide incision with a sharp fingernail. In surprise, he yelped, wondering if she had injured him by accident, and drew his hand back. In that moment she did the same to her own palm, and then before he had chance to react, she had pressed them together.

First, his hand simply throbbed on contact with the other wound – but then there was a feeling of dizziness and confusion, followed by a rush of tangled thoughts that were not entirely his own, and shards of memories of events he had never witnessed; there was a flash of being blooded by a man he did not recognize that disoriented him, a flash of a vicious slaying he had never been a part of, a hint of Mika and an accompanying sense of comfort, trust and safety that did not fit correctly with his own perceptions, and a few shadows of fires, fear, running, grey cities, black skies, wrists pinned together, _get out of this house!_, hiding bottles and pressing a cold flannel against a woman's head with a child's hand.

As quickly as it started, it was all over. Suddenly exhausted, Larten collapsed onto his back, drained, eyes half-lidded. Before his companion could do the same, he grasped her wrist and brought her palm to his lips, sealing the wound, before doing the same to his own, noting a raised white scar like a new lifeline across his palm. Distantly, he wondered what she had seen, and hoped at least some of what he considered to be his most important life events had been omitted. Some of what he'd felt had shocked him, and certainly he had not told her everything about his past. In one sense, he hoped it had all got across to her all in one go, and she had no questions left to ask him. But some of the images he'd received from her had left him with thousands of questions unanswered, and he expected the same from her. It seemed an ironic, very vampiric way to initiate some sort of trust – though it had all rushed by him in a few seconds, he felt he knew her more than ever.

He rolled his head to the side to meet her eyes. "That's it," she said simply.

"Will we have to do it again in front of Seba?" he asked softly, realizing absently that he had some odd ability to scroll through the scraps of memories that she had passed to him. They were clearer than his own, like moving photographs, only without any of the accompanying context that would have given them their meaning.

"I'm in no rush to do it again," she responded, eyes glazed as she did the same. She jumped a little at something she saw, then snapped back out of his memories. He felt a flash of panic, knowing something she'd seen in him or his past had disturbed her, but then she entwined their hands again as a gesture of comfort. He had played back what little she had passed to him of her blooding, but he couldn't bear the rest – the brief snaps of feelings he'd got from her memories as a human had made him flinch with their intensity of feeling and his overwhelming desire not to have to see them, and so much else was Mika, and not in the disdainful way he would have liked. He put everything he had just discovered to the back of his mind as well as he could, trying to clear it, and as he did he felt a strong other presence there. It had almost slipped his mind entirely that they would be connected. She swam around his mind, like the feeling of light-headedness, sweeping away everything else; making a connection with him that superseded everything else in his thoughts. How powerful would they be now, when they travelled out in the world together, now that they were connected like this? Suddenly, he couldn't wait for it.

_Let's go tomorrow_ his mind told him, a thought that was hers and not his own, but one that he gladly accepted. The feelings were all alien to him, but in a comforting way – though he didn't like her memories, and the feeling of triangulation was somehow different with her, more all-consuming, finally he felt that they were one and the same – truly kindred spirits, gliding and merging. It was the most intrusive, most unpleasant, most intoxicating, most _wonderful _feeling in the world. He had wanted so often to really read her mind – now, if she allowed it, he really could. Without asking her, he could feel the ache on her skin from the cold – she was much colder than he was – and her hand was stinging more than his. She was excited – he knew because the emotion was almost a firework in his mind. He had known he loved her as soon as her feelings became more important to him than his own, and somehow their bonding had intensified this – her thoughts in his mind were stronger than his own, the cold on her skin made him shiver violently and unbutton his overcoat, laying it around her without ever having to ask.

Briefly, he thanked the Vampire Gods for this. Marriage could never have made them one the way this ancient ceremony had.

_I love you_, he thought, as coherently as he could, and she slid a hand across his chest, around his neck, up to his jaw, cupping his face and turning it towards hers for a kiss. "I love you too," she replied, and, without seeing her lips move, he would not have been sure if she'd said it out loud or in her mind. He closed his eyes and focused on how close to dawn they might be, and, with a jolt, broke the connection. They were just two beings again, and he couldn't read whether she was disappointed or pleased not to be in his thoughts any longer – they were back to normal. He took a few deep breaths, amazed, and smiled.

"That is magical," he breathed. Then he wheezed a laugh. "It was difficult enough to keep my mind off of you before," he joked, before jumping to his feet and grasping her hands to pull her up.

"Why the rush?" she asked, still sounding a little dazed from their experience.

"You are too cold out here," he reminded her, linking their arms as they began to walk back towards the entrance to the Mountain. She gave him an inquisitive look. "I'm fine," she shrugged, staring at him oddly.

"I could feel it," he told her. "Your back feels numb the way you have been lying on the icy ground."

Her mouth dropped open, and then she grinned.

"Besides," he told her casually, slinging an arm around her shoulders and running his tongue over his teeth. "Imagine everything else we can use our newfound powers for…"


End file.
